Crabs

[biggun]

Guys.. Just read on facebook, Article on the overharvest of crabs..

It's coming guys.. Lower limits on crabs, and season closures... Just go out in Verm. bay near any entrance to State Wildlife refuge.. Its hard to get into the canal will all the traps they have at the mouth...

I've known for yrs this was coming.. Female crab doesn't have a chance.

From what I read. Looking at season closures.. Maybe lower limits.

[jalcock]

Big Lake and Sabine Lake are both loaded with crab traps! Difficult to maneuver through!

Jane

[jalcock]

Females in berry state are tossed back into the water!

Jane

[keakar]

typical response, do nothing to commercials but add restrictions to recreational crabbers who did nothing to cause the problem and couldn't hurt the populations even if they used dynamite to fish for them.

first thing they do is say they cant limit the number of commercial fishermen or the numbers of traps they use which is pure B S.

if they can give out hundreds of gator tags every season, then they can give out hundreds of crab trap tags to be attached to the traps and at the same time, setting a max number allowed limiting commercials to only 250 traps. it will hurt at first but the numbers caught will go up quickly after these restrictions and crabbers will make more money with less traps because of better numbers and less competition.

then they need to further limit the number of crabbers like they do with oyster harvesters and have a lottery or limited licensing system to cut in half the number of commercial crabbers that are out there now. maybe limit the number of fishermen allowed to a certain amount allowed for each coastal zone.

[rustyb]

11 day ceab season for recreational.

[meaux fishing]

Originally Posted by rustyb

11 day ceab season for recreational.

Meet the quota in 4 days...

[Goooh]

Originally Posted by biggun

Guys.. Just read on facebook, Article on the overharvest of crabs..



It's coming guys.. Lower limits on crabs, and season closures... Just go out in Verm. bay near any entrance to State Wildlife refuge.. Its hard to get into the canal will all the traps they have at the mouth...



I've known for yrs this was coming.. Female crab doesn't have a chance.



From what I read. Looking at season closures.. Maybe lower limits.

Good.

[simplepeddler]

Originally Posted by keakar

typical response, do nothing to commercials but add restrictions to recreational crabbers who did nothing to cause the problem and couldn't hurt the populations even if they used dynamite to fish for them.

first thing they do is say they cant limit the number of commercial fishermen or the numbers of traps they use which is pure B S.

if they can give out hundreds of gator tags every season, then they can give out hundreds of crab trap tags to be attached to the traps and at the same time, setting a max number allowed limiting commercials to only 250 traps. it will hurt at first but the numbers caught will go up quickly after these restrictions and crabbers will make more money with less traps because of better numbers and less competition.

then they need to further limit the number of crabbers like they do with oyster harvesters and have a lottery or limited licensing system to cut in half the number of commercial crabbers that are out there now. maybe limit the number of fishermen allowed to a certain amount allowed for each coastal zone.

Right on........the recreational fisherman, reggardless of species taken, cannot hurt the population with the traditional means. A rod and reel will never devestate the trout population and 10 traps will never devistate the crab population.

Commercial fisherman, like the gator fisherman of the past, must realize that THEY are the key to saving the very resources that NEED to make a living.

[Goooh]

Originally Posted by simplepeddler

Right on........the recreational fisherman, reggardless of species taken, cannot hurt the population with the traditional means. A rod and reel will never devestate the trout population and 10 traps will never devistate the crab population.



Commercial fisherman, like the gator fisherman of the past, must realize that THEY are the key to saving the very resources that NEED to make a living.

How can rod and reel never devastate a population?

Can the same logic be put on guns?

I think clear distinctions can be made with regards to populations of fish based on recreational inputs with rod and reel.

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by biggun

Guys.. Just read on facebook, Article on the overharvest of crabs..

It's coming guys.. Lower limits on crabs, and season closures... Just go out in Verm. bay near any entrance to State Wildlife refuge.. Its hard to get into the canal will all the traps they have at the mouth...

I've known for yrs this was coming.. Female crab doesn't have a chance.

From what I read. Looking at season closures.. Maybe lower limits.

I would be for putting a limit to the amount of females to males taken. Say for every 6 males you can keep 1 female. Its ridiculous that certain times of the year you can go to grand isle and catch 200-300 female crabs and no males. That has to hurt the population. Maybe Math Geek could help with this.

[FF_T_Warren]

Female crabs only have eggs once in their life and only molt once. So throw them back when they have eggs. It'd be the ppl keeping crabs loaded with eggs that's the problem. And grand isle has the same thing happen with males. At July 4 I'll catch 15 dozen and 1/3-1/2 may be females with eggs depending on the year but a few years ago I caught 10 dozen in August without a single female

[Duck Butter]

A lot of those females you catch in the surf in places like Grand Isle are past their breeding and are the perfect ones to keep

[simplepeddler]

Originally Posted by Goooh

How can rod and reel never devastate a population?

Can the same logic be put on guns?

I think clear distinctions can be made with regards to populations of fish based on recreational inputs with rod and reel.

point made.........with current limits do you think a rod and reel can take too many?

[Goooh]

Originally Posted by simplepeddler

point made.........with current limits do you think a rod and reel can take too many?

I believe that the SPR and limits should be continually monitored and limits should be changed accordingly. To think that limits should remain the same if all things stay the same with the biomass and estuary, while human population continues to increase along with the number of anglers does not compute with me.

My observation and theory...


I'm 30 years old and have been fishing and crabbing from vermilion bay to holly beach since I was little, and the number of people out there has grown considerably since I can remember. I could tell the increase in people by the time I was 18 and even more in my early to mid twenties. Do y'all have a different experience?

With the continual expansion of refineries and influx of outdoorsmen that typically move here for those positions, along with regular old natural population increase, there has to be an affect on pressure. This coupled with the advancement of fishing technology that allows people to run places they'd never dream of without a true knowledge of a fishing area, and the Internet/social media eliminating the need for putting in your time at the local bait shops and marinas to learn from people with wisdom has to have introduced a large population of harvesters.

Without HD maps half of the idiots on the water would have been too scared to get that expensive boat and tear off into the abyss. A lot of people don't beat the snot out of an aluminum bait with zero electronics while learning to navigate before diving off into a full blown fishing boat. A lot of them have never dragged a boat out of bayou pigeon for 2 hours and bailed water in storms on the way back (navionics on a phone would have saved us that day), or high sided a skiff on an oyster pad.

For me, the expansion and addition of numerous boat launches and marina facilities around the coast is a testament to the increase in recreational fisherman.

Just my theory.

[PotLikinisAhabbit]

Fu. K. Em. Crab fisherman running off with people's ole ladies thinking they can do whatever the want. I'd prefer the crab population get wiped out to put them sum benches out of business.

[CorkieB]

Sabine is infested with crabbers... worst of all they are all little brown people.

[Goooh]

Commercial crabbers got the best corks though

[WorldWideSportsman87]

They have actually started putting restrictions on commercial crabbers and started making it harder to get a license
Now you have to go to classes and put in hours with an existing commercial crabber but I guess it's a little too late

[simplepeddler]

Originally Posted by Goooh

I believe that the SPR and limits should be continually monitored and limits should be changed accordingly. To think that limits should remain the same if all things stay the same with the biomass and estuary, while human population continues to increase along with the number of anglers does not compute with me.

My observation and theory...


I'm 30 years old and have been fishing and crabbing from vermilion bay to holly beach since I was little, and the number of people out there has grown considerably since I can remember. I could tell the increase in people by the time I was 18 and even more in my early to mid twenties. Do y'all have a different experience?

With the continual expansion of refineries and influx of outdoorsmen that typically move here for those positions, along with regular old natural population increase, there has to be an affect on pressure. This coupled with the advancement of fishing technology that allows people to run places they'd never dream of without a true knowledge of a fishing area, and the Internet/social media eliminating the need for putting in your time at the local bait shops and marinas to learn from people with wisdom has to have introduced a large population of harvesters.

Without HD maps half of the idiots on the water would have been too scared to get that expensive boat and tear off into the abyss. A lot of people don't beat the snot out of an aluminum bait with zero electronics while learning to navigate before diving off into a full blown fishing boat. A lot of them have never dragged a boat out of bayou pigeon for 2 hours and bailed water in storms on the way back (navionics on a phone would have saved us that day), or high sided a skiff on an oyster pad.

For me, the expansion and addition of numerous boat launches and marina facilities around the coast is a testament to the increase in recreational fisherman.

Just my theory.

I am 52 and this debate or point of debate has been going on as long as I can remember.

I also remember in the 70's catching crabs from our pier at our family camp in the dozens. Then I remember not catching them for over a decade in the 80's. And everyone thought then.......we were done......yet here we are in 2016 catching crabs again........

all the "stuff" does not equal more harvest to me. It means more sells for companies, more people on the water, more people with more gadgets and yes for some it may mean more fish.

But as a whole, we no longer have an attention spans past the new "thing" that is cool........I.E. duck hunters and the Robertson's affect on the sport.

But all those young men, bought all those mud boats and now they cannot kill more ducks because of all the "pressure" yets us old guys kill all the birds we want (well maybe not all but enough)........

I hear you..........I've seen it........but our fisherie is as healthy as it has ever been. As the gadgets get better, so does our science to save and or preserve the populations of what we chase.

Oysters, shrimp, grabs and of course the elusive red snapper seem to be at all time highs.........water quality gets better and better. Our oysters are affected more by the fresh water we put on them during flooding than harvest. But up and down the east coast you hear more and more reclamation of the indicator species.

I will concede that adjustments must be made from time to time, but I will still beleive that if we only had "recreational" harvest of the resources, we would not hurt the resource.

But hey........I could be dead wrong

[Mr T]

for what its worth, I went crabbing at Marsh Island Friday at the Gordy Dam then the Big Dam. We kept 6 dozen, caught 2-3 times that much, with only about 10 females caught. None had eggs yet but released all the girls.